Lutsenko extends overall lead with stage 8 victory in Tour of Hainan

Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) won stage 8 at Tour of Hainan as he extended his overall lead.

On Saturday, the 24-year-old Kazakhstan rider and 2012 under-23 UCI world road race champion overcame four categorised climbs and added stage winner to his most recent list of accomplishments after outsprinting stage 1 winner and previous race leader Rafael Andriato (Wilier Triestina-Southeast) on stage 8 (165.8km) in Qiongzhong, China. Italian Andrea Pasqualon (Team Roth) finished third for his second podium of the race.

“On the last KOM, I wanted to attack,” explained Lutsenko following his third victory of the season, which also included a Paris-Nice stage win in March. “I was joined by a small group that I wanted to take to the finish, but a chase group caught us and we all went to the line together.

“I want to thank my teammates, because in the last kilometre I had two riders (Dmitriy Gruzdev and Daniil Fominykh) leading me out and giving me big support, otherwise I would have been racing a lot of good sprinters and it would have been very difficult. This win is because of my team.”